your look ● ﬁtness
Crank it UP!
Mariah White has been a ﬁtness
model for MasterCard and Adidas Ad
campaigns. She is also a featured
model in the Pageantry & PromTime
2012 Fashion Showcase.
By performing your exercise
routines in short-but-intense
bursts, you can actually
achieve desired results
without having to spend all
of your time in the gym
I f you’ve ever seen the classic comedy, There’s Some-
thing About Mary, then you’re sure to remember the
scene in which Ben Stiller’s character hitches a ride
with a psychotic man babbling on about “7-Minute
Abs”. At one point, Stiller asks him what happens
when someone comes up with “6-Minute Abs” and, of
course, he responds with a hilariously angry answer. But in
that ridiculous moment of imaginary dialogue, there was a
reality—we crave better results in shorter time.
We live in a faced-paced, attention deﬁcit and immedi-
ate gratiﬁcation kind of world. It’s part of the reason that
the diet and ﬁtness industry is getting inundated with In-
sanity workouts, 6-Minute Abs and quick-ﬁx magic weight
loss pills. With the No. 1 excuse for avoiding exercise being
“I don’t have enough time,” the idea of working out for a
short time and getting more out of it has undeniable ap-
peal. After all, who wouldn’t want to spend less time with
the monotony of lifting, sweating and straining and more
time doing whatever it is you like to do? That brings us to
the question—How little exercise can I get away with?
The answer, it seems, may be four minutes.
THE SCIENCE OF SIZE
Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science
and Technology in Trondheim, Norway, and other institu-
tions, attempted to identify the minimum amount of exer-
cise required to develop or maintain healthy gains. The
study examined the effects of a relatively large dose of high-
intensity intervals on various measures of health and ﬁtness
and determined that a single, strenuous four-minute work-
out effectively improved health and ﬁtness.
At the end of the program, the subjects had increased
their maximal oxygen uptake, or endurance capacity, by an
average of 10 percent or more. Metabolic and cardiovascu-
lar health likewise had improved with almost all of the par-
86 PAGEANTRY
PHOTOS BY
JOHN MCCLURG
ticipants displaying better blood sugar control and blood
pressure proﬁles, with similar results as those that had exer-
cised vigorously for 16 minute sessions.
TURN UP THE INTENSITY
High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is an enhanced
form of interval training: bursts of strenuous exercise last-
ing anywhere from 30 seconds to several minutes, inter-
spersed with short periods of rest. It works and anyone can
ﬁnd the time to do it, and this is why high-intensity inter-
val training is becoming the go-to workout not just for
olympic athletes, but celebrities, corporate executives and
busy housewives.
The Norwegian University study is hardly the only evi-
dence. In recent years, a wealth of studies have established
that sessions of high-intensity exercises can be as potent
physiologically, as much longer bouts of sustained en-
durance exercise. But, the evidence has been available as
early as the 1970s. Japanese scientist Izumi Tabata’s ground
breaking research at a department of physiology in Japan is
credited with the creation of the four-minute workout, or
“The Tabata Protocol”.
To do a Tabata, all you have to do is pick a cardio activ-
ity, such as running, jumping rope, or biking, and go as hard
as you can for 20 seconds. Follow that with 10 seconds of